Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Word is out that Amazon has chosen Long Island City as one of two locations for its new second headquarters.
Instead of welcoming a new large business to Queens, a company that can only employ workers in the area by competing for them, socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‏ has joined Tucker Carlson in a hate campaign against the online retail giant.

We’ve been getting calls and outreach from Queens residents all day about this.

No one is forced to work for Amazon. Anyone can ignore the company and its job offers if they choose. Long Island City is part of one of the largest generally free market metropolises in the world. There are jobs all over the damn place.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is likely to turn to a controversial planning process used on projects like Atlantic Yards and the World Trade Center in order to push forward Amazon’s potential headquarters in Queens.

The Cuomo administration is planning to create what’s known as a general project plan to rezone a roughly 20-acre site around the Anable Basin on the Long Island City waterfront to pave the way for a sprawling office and mixed-use campus, Crain’s reported.

The process would give the state the power to greenlight the project without securing approval from the City Council, which usually holds most of the power when it comes to major rezoning projects.

Local City Council member Jimmy Van Bramer — who holds what would likely be the key vote in any city rezoning process — was highly critical of the governor’s plans.

In other words, it looks like a clean deal with no crony inducements for Amazon. Just progress haters will be against it.

3 comments:

Progress is a double edged sword. There are winners and losers. Amazon is claimed to be responsible for higher housing costs in the area of its headquarters. This can be good for current owners and bad for future owners and renters. I’m sure She Guevara will make points of all the losers and ignore or claim winners to be exploiters.

When these cities offer tax breaks, subsidies, or zoning favors to companies that then choose to move there, isn't that an admission that taxes and zoning constrain commerce, job creation, etc.? Strangely, the relevant governments are quick and loud to tout their "wins" in attracting businesses like AMZN, but never apologize to all other actual or potential businesses, or potential employees, who don't get the benefits from such largesse.